It seems difficult to imagine after the winter just endured in this part of the world, but a new report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that global warming is driving humanity toward a whole new level of risk.
Officially released on a weekend when people everywhere celebrated Earth Hour by collectively getting by without power for 60 minutes, the report by a United Nations scientific panel says the wild climate ride humanity is in for has only just begun.
Extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and flooding can all be expected to increase in frequency as the earth continues on an overall warming trend the panel says is fueled largely by human activity.
A summary of the report, approved by governments from 100 countries, projects risks such as food and water shortages and extinctions of animals and plants. Crop yields in some areas could fall up to two per cent a decade, compared to a world without warming. Continued warming could mean irreversible shifts, such as a runaway melt of Greenland or a drying of the Amazon rainforest.
“Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at a News conference following the release of the report.
The risks we all face are now considered even worse than in 2007, when the group of scientists last issued this type of report
“We are going to see more and more impacts, faster and sooner than we had anticipated,” said report co-author Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University in Bangladesh.
Ironically, for Canada there are expected to be, initially at least, some economic benefits to climate change, mostly resulting from the anticipated opening up of our arctic regions for shipping, oil and gas extraction and eco-tourism. A longer growing season is also expected to benefit the agriculture sector. Ironically, such activity is expected to actually accelerate warming and climate change. The Center for Global Development places Canada last among 28 countries which are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development when it comes to climate change remediation. While some of that flows inevitably from efforts to cope with a cold climate on a large land mass, other factors are due to choices we make, including withdrawal from the Kyoto Accord and continually rising carbon emissions – considered largely due to oil sands development.
The negative effects of climate change will eventually hit home with unpleasant impacts domestically.
A list of potential impacts found on the federal government website include increased smog and heat waves resulting in more temperature-related illness and death; the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria‚ dengue and yellow fever into Canada as insects carrying these diseases migrate north with the warming climate; and a decline in the quality and quantity of drinking water as water sources in some areas become threatened by drought.
So, if not to be responsible global citizens, it appears there are at least some self-serving reasons for Canadians to urge their governments, at all levels, to become leaders, rather than laggards, when it comes to curbing emissions and encouraging the development of alternative energy sources.
Patrick Raftis
